I was hoping we could start a thread where everyone interested could post the most recent stuff they heard about the recount. Little or no commentary, mainly the most recent most reliable news we can find. It seems there are a number of related threads in just about every forum. I’m not sure which forum this type of thread would be most appropriate in, but we might want to post links to it in the other threads as we visit them.
Here’s my latest finding.
Florida’s Pinellas Recount Shows Swing to Gore
CLEARWATER, Fla. (Reuters) - Elections workers in Florida’s Pinellas County launched a second recount of votes on Thursday after a first recount produced a swing of more than 400 votes to Vice President Al Gore (an elections official said.
The large swing was due in part to some 400 ballots that workers failed to count on election night. They were in house but the (counting machine) operator did not follow procedure,'' Pinellas Deputy Supervisor of Elections Joan Brock said. They hadn’t been counted election night.’’
The election night tally of 406,555 ballots cast in Pinellas, a west coast county that encompasses Clearwater and St. Petersburg, showed 200,212 votes for the vice president and 184,884 for Texas Gov. George W. Bush .
The recount on Wednesday of 406,948 ballots – including those previously uncounted – had 200,616 for Gore and 184,823 for Bush.
The results produced a loss of 61 votes for Bush and a gain of 404 for Gore, a net swing of 465 votes.
If the Pinellas recount results hold, they would reduce the Bush margin in Florida to about 500 votes with about half of Florida’s 67 counties reporting recount results. Bush’s election night lead of 1,784 had already been reduced to 941 with early recount results.
Brock said Pinellas began recounting its votes early on Thursday and would have results by midafternoon.
A very small update, but at 13:14 the AP updated their story. From here:
I can’t find the GD in this topic, so I’ll ask a GQ (in case that is where this gets moved to). Which news service updates the fastest? Is there a site that posts results directly from Florida, or do we have to go to a site to find the information? And to hedge my bets, I’ll ask an IMHO - What is the best, most updated, least partisan site to get news from? I’ve been bouncing back and forth between CNN.com and the AP wire link. Anyone else?
No need to get snippy. It was a legitimate question because I did read your post and did not understand. It seemed unbelivable, so I ask for clarification. Maybe someone else without the attitude could provide it.
They found 400 ballots. Gore goes up by 400.
All other counties are showing very modest differences. The only added variable I see in this case is the found ballots. If the found ballots are not responsible, there must be another explanation.
My interest in this other explanation is sincere. I’ve been awake for two days. Maybe it is right there in the post in front of me. If so, gently point it out, please.
divemaster, I explained earlier in the other thread with this posted, but it looks like this is the vote update thread.
Those votes found added up to 400. Gore gained by 400 in the county. That doesn’t mean that all 400 of those votes were Gore’s. Look at Bush’s votes. They went down by 61 in the county. Finding 400 extra ballots doesn’t make votes disappear. The article is simply stating that “the large swing was due in part to some 400 ballots that workers failed to count”, where “in part” are the key words.
Sorry, dive. I gues I was a little frustrated b/c it is so tough to get accurate info on this type of thing. I did not realize the article was in any way unclear. IMO your comment inaccurately reflected the content of the report, and distracted from what I hoped this thread would accomplish. Sorry again.
The article says there was a swing of “more than 400” based on “some 400” ballots found. According to the article (and if I can add correctly), the actual number of ballots found was 393. Recounting all 407G votes, (including the newly found ones) Bush lost 61 and Gore gained 404, for a net swing of 465 votes.
Chris Lehane just hinted that the Gore folks will not concede anything until the electoral college vote in December. (Will this be preceded by a whole new campaign directed at the electors?)
I have no idea what the average county “bump” is. Does a 400 or so swing seem out of line? If you graphed it, would it be one old honkin’ outlier? Would we be talking about a P of less than 0.001?
If so, there must be some variable/factor causing it. Something not present or occurring in the other counties. If not missing ballots, what? Inquiring minds want to know!
Of course, if other counties are showing similar swings, I withdraw the question.
Gazoo has a great link in the other thread I mentioned. Damned if I can remember which of the 1000s of election threads it is. The same one that that article was posted in by Dinsdale.
Here’s what I think on the fact that Gore’s votes are steadily increasing. Gore’s voter base is in largely populated areas. The smaller counties are favored towards Bush, as can be illustrated extremely well here on MSNBC:
Small voting places are less likely to make mistakes, due to easier access and such. Large places with large lines and large crowds and overworked officials are more likely (or so I would imagine). I would also conclude that mistakes are more likely to occur at these places, and happen to Gore/Bush in the same proportion, which is somewhat indicated by Gazoo’s link (sure wish I could find it).
Dinsdale, I would have to agree that Gore should wait for the EC to vote. THAT’S where our president is elected from. There are 27 states that have electors unbound by law to vote what they pledged. While some may disagree with any deviation from this intention, that’s the way the system works. So if some elector wants to protest the system by switching his vote to coincide with the winner of the overall popular vote, so be it. At this point in our nation’s history (i.e. before any EC reform), we have to process to control this, as well we shouldn’t.
There. That should show up as a link.
This is absolutely nuts. I think I’m going to have to take tomorrow off work. Wait a minute. I work for the federal government…
I heard that the Bush camp is qestioning the 643 votes for Gore that they “found” in Palm County during the recount. This is seperate from the “missing” 400 votes that turned up for Gore.
Here is another take on the legality of the ballots. This is a link to the Florida Statutes.
I’m not a lawyer. Any lawyers out there want to take a look at that link and see if the ballots were legal?
(is anyone elese having trouble getting this board to load?)
Bush still leads by 787, with 53 out of 67 counties reporting, according to washingtonpost.com.
So Iowa will do a recount? Interesting. Any news if Wisconsin (another razor-thin margin for Gore) will do a recount? If Bush takes Oregon (where he currently leads), Wisconsin, and Iowa, he wins without any care as to how Florida turns out.
